1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image stabilization. More particularly, this invention pertains to a method for image sequence stabilization that includes systematic elimination of blank areas in frames in the presence of image location adjustments.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Videos, especially those taken by hand-held means, such as home videos taken by amateur videographers, often include “shaky” portions due to the presence of, for example, unintentional hand tremor or other platform instability.
Prior solutions to the problem of filtering unwanted motion from videos have involved the relocation of images, effectively smoothing the overall motion. Commonly, a particular, perhaps prominent, feature, is selected and its location (horizontal, vertical or both) tracked from frame-to-frame. Thereafter, a filtering-based algorithm is applied to generate frame-by-frame adjustments of the (horizontal, vertical, or both) location of each image that includes such selected feature within or with respect to its frame.
While reducing the effect of such factors as hand tremor and smoothing motion to present a more-professional appearance, such techniques are subject to the creation of often-distracting blank border areas that differ from frame-to-frame. This can result in annoying “boundary flicker”, reflecting the fact that the undesired hand tremor has been effectively transported from the image feature to the frame's borders by the step of motion compensation resulting in image relocation within the frame pursuant to the selected algorithm.